Processes of post-burial change in soils under archaeological monuments: a micromorphological study with particular reference to the processes of clay and iron redistribution

The micromorphological examination of soils buried beneath archaeological sites has been an important source of information concerning past pedogenesis, environmental conditions and anthropogenic activity. An assumption inherent in these studies has been that burial preserves the character of the original soil fabric. However, over the past two decades, wealth of evidence to the contrary has been emerging. This study aims to investigate he nature of changes in the soil micro-fabric that may result from burial; and in particular to examine the causes and implications of post-burial iron redistribution and clay translocation. Soils were examined that had been buried beneath archaeological sites of different ages, in a number of study regions each with different parent materials. Within these sites profiles with contrasting depths of burial were studied. The micromorphological, and bulk physical and chemical characteristics of the buried soils and their overburdens were determined. Statistical analysis of the results confirms that after burial a wide range of physical, chemical, and biological processes operate resulting in the formation of secondary soil features and the alteration of the micro-fabric of all the buried soils studied. The nature of the processes operating after burial is influenced by factors of parent material, site age and the depth to which the soil was buried. Two distinctive sets of processes were identified, firstly those related to near surface processes of pedogenesis that result in the biological, chemical and physical welding of relatively shallowly buried soils within the developing surface profile, and secondly those processes distinctive to the burial environment. The second suite of processes includes the redoximorphic redistribution of iron to form pans and nodules, and processes of clay translocation related to the internal slaking of overburden materials. These processes tend to operate in more deeply buried profiles. Soil texture appears to be important in determining the depth of burial required for isolation from surface processes. Time since burial controls the period of time over which processes operate and that pedofeatures have to adjust to the burial environment. Site age also appears to influence the constructional, climatic and parent material burial factors that initiate iron redistribution and clay translocation within buried soils and their overburdens

Development of an awareness-based intervention to enhance quality of life in severe dementia: trial platform.

RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.BACKGROUND: Quality of residential care for people with severe dementia is in urgent need of improvement. One reason for this may be the assumption that people with severe dementia are unaware of what is happening to them. However, there is converging evidence to suggest that global assumptions of unawareness are inappropriate. This trial platform study aims to assist care staff in perceiving and responding to subtle signs of awareness and thus enhance their practice. METHODS/DESIGN: In Stage One, a measure of awareness in severe dementia will be developed. Two focus groups and an expert panel will contribute to item and scale development. In Stage Two observational data will be used to further develop the measure. Working in four care homes, we will recruit 40 individuals with severe dementia who have no, or very limited, verbal communication. Data on inter-rater reliability and frequency of all items and exploratory factor analysis will be used to identify items to be retained. Test-retest and inter-rater reliability for the new measure will be calculated. Correlations with scores for well-being and behaviour and with proxy ratings of quality of life will provide an indication of concurrent validity. In Stage Three the new measure will be used in a single blind cluster randomised trial. Eight care homes will participate, with 10 residents recruited in each giving a total sample of 80 people with severe dementia. Homes will be randomised to intervention or usual care conditions. In the intervention condition, staff will receive training in using the new measure and will undertake observations of designated residents. For residents with dementia, outcomes will be assessed in terms of change from baseline in scores for behaviour, well-being and quality of life. For care staff, outcomes will be assessed in terms of change from baseline in scores for attitudes, care practice, and well-being. DISCUSSION: The results will inform the design of a larger-scale trial intended to provide definitive evidence about the benefits of increasing the sensitivity of care staff to signs of awareness in residents with severe dementia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN59507580 http://www.controlled-trials.com.Published versio

Europeanization of sub-arctic environments : perspectives from Norse Greenland's outer fjords

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Leverhulme Trust Footprints on the Edge of Thule Programme Award. ECL acknowledges the support of the Weissman International Internship Program, the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Department of Anthropology at Harvard. We would also like to thank George McLeod (University of Stirling) for manufacturing soil thin sections.Peer reviewedPostprin

Tell formation processes as indicated from geoarchaeological and geochemical investigations at Xeropolis, Euboea, Greece

Xeropolis is a tell site on the island of Euboea, Greece just to the east of the village of Lefkandi, and was occupied from the Early Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. Excavations in recent years have provided an opportunity to investigate site formation processes using geoarchaeological and geochemical techniques. Sediments derived from the tell on the southern side have been lost by coastal erosion whilst those on the north mantle the flanking slope. Of particular interest is a homogeneous and unstratified deposit of over 2 m which overlies the archaeology near the southern perimeter of the summit area. The soil structure as evident in thin sections indicates a high degree of bioturbation, probably stimulated by recent manuring and cultivation. The implication is that tillage erosion has had a major impact on the morphology as well as on the surface soils of the tell. Despite such reworking and redeposition of near surface materials, it is still possible from multi-element analysis to identify the geochemical distinctiveness of six archaeological contexts (pit, house, plaster floor, alley, road and yard); pits and floors have high loadings of all elements except Pb; in contrast pits and floors have the lowest elemental concentrations

Transport of NOX emissions from sugarcane fertilisation into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon

The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area contains highly sensitive ecosystems that are threatened by the effects of anthropogenic activity including eutrophication. The nearby sugarcane plantations of tropical north Queensland are fertilised annually and there has been ongoing concern about the magnitude of the loss of applied nitrogen to the environment. Previous studies have considered the potential of rainwater run-off to deposit reactive nitrogen species into rivers and ultimately into the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon, but have neglected the possibility of transport via the atmosphere. This paper reports the results of a modelling study commissioned by Australia’s National Heritage Trust aimed at assessing whether or not atmospheric deposition of reactive nitrogen from Queensland’s sugarcane plantations posed a potential threat to the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon. Atmospheric dispersion modelling was undertaken using The Air Pollution Model, developed by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Despite the predominance of onshore southeasterly winds, the dispersion model results indicate that 9% of the time during the sugarcane fertilization season (in the modeled years 2001–2006) the meteorological conditions resulted in emissions from the coastal regions of north Queensland being transported out over the ocean around the Great Barrier Reef. The results suggest that there may be a greater efficiency for transport out over the reef during October than for November and December. For the 2 months that exhibited the greatest potential for transport of coastal pollution to the Great Barrier Reef, the modeled deposition of nitrogen oxides (NOX) into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon was less than 1% of the total emissions from the sugarcane plantations, but was not zero. Our model has a simple chemical scheme that does not cover the full chemistry of all reactive nitrogen compounds and so the results are only indicative of the potential levels of deposition. Nevertheless, our study shows that small amounts of NOX that originate from sugarcane fertilization may be transported and dry deposited into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. Other pathways not included in the modeling scheme may provide a more efficient transport mechanism. Whilst modern practices for the application of fertilizer to sugarcane plantations have drastically reduced emissions, the potential efficiency of transport of pollutants via the atmosphere may be of concern for other more highly polluting agricultural industries

Studying changes in the practice of two teachers developing assessment for learning

This paper describes changes in the practice of two teachers, observed over an eighteen month period, who were participating in a study intended to support teachers in developing their use of assessment in support of learning. The design of the intervention allowed each teacher to choose for themselves which aspects of their practice to develop. Analysis of lesson observations, journal entries and interviews indicate that both teachers were keen to change their practice, but were concerned about the disruption to their established routines, and in particular about the potential for loss of control of their classes. Both teachers did effect significant changes in their classrooms, but these tended to be developments of existing preferred ways of working, rather than radical innovations. In conclusion, it is suggested that to be most effective, teacher professional development needs to be structured strongly enough to afford teacher growth, but flexible enough to allow different teachers to take their practice in different ways

Trace Gas Emissions from Biomass Burning inferred from Aerosol Optical Depth

We have observed strong correlations between simultaneous and co-located measurements of aerosol optical depth and column amounts of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde and ammonia in bushfire smoke plumes over SE Australia during the Austral summers of 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. We show how satellite-derived aerosol optical depth maps may be used in conjunction with these correlations to determine the total amounts of these gases present in a fire-affected region. This provides the basis of a method for estimating total emissions of trace gases from biomass burning episodes using visible radiances measured by satellite

Multi-element soil analysis: an assessment of its potential as an aid to archaeological interpretation

Multi-element soil analysis is now an established technique in archaeology. It has been used to locate archaeological sites and define the extent of human activity beyond the structural remains, and to aid interpretation of space use in and around archaeological remains. This study aimed to evaluate the consistency of these soil element signatures between sites and hence their potential usefulness in archaeological studies. Known contexts on abandoned farms across the UK were sampled to test the relationships between element concentrations and known functional area and to assess inter-site variability. The results clearly show that there are significant differences in the soil chemistry of contrasting functional areas, particularly for Ba, Ca, P, Zn, Cu, Sr and Pb. Despite significant site specific effects, which appear to reflect individual anthropogenic practices rather than geological influences, there is sufficient similarity in the pattern of element enhancement to allow reliable interpretation of former function using discriminant models. Relating these enhancements to precise soil inputs, however, is more problematic because many important soil inputs do not contain distinct element fingerprints and because there is mixing of materials within the soil. There is also a suggestion that charcoal and bone play an important role in both the loading and post-depositional retention of Ca, Sr, P, Zn, and Cu and thus may be significant in the formation of soil element concentration patterns

The prevalence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is characterised by symptoms confined to the premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle. Confirmed diagnosis requires prospective monitoring of symptoms over two cycles, otherwise the diagnosis is provisional. We aimed to measure the point prevalence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Methods: We searched for studies of prevalence using MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO and PubMed. For each study, the total sample size and number of cases were extracted. The prevalence across studies was calculated using random effects meta-analysis with a generalised linear mixed model. Potential sources of heterogeneity were explored by meta-regression and subgroup analyses. Pre-registration was with PROSPERO (CRD42021249249). Results: 44 studies with 48 independent samples met inclusion criteria, consisting of 50,659 participants. The pooled prevalence was 3.2 % (95 % confidence intervals: 1.7 %–5.9 %) for confirmed and 7.7 % (95 % confidence intervals: 5.3 %–11.0 %) for provisional diagnosis. There was high heterogeneity across all studies (I2 = 99 %). Sources of heterogeneity identified by meta-regression were continent of sample (p < 0.0001), type of sample (community-based, university, high school) (p = 0.007), risk of bias (p = 0.009), and method of diagnosis (p = 0.017). Restricting the analysis to community-based samples using confirmed diagnosis resulted in a prevalence of 1.6 % (95 % confidence intervals: 1.0 %–2.5 %), with low heterogeneity (I2 = 26 %). Limitations: A small number of included studies used full DSM criteria in community settings. Conclusions: The point prevalence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder using confirmed diagnosis is lower compared with provisional diagnosis. Studies relying on provisional diagnosis are likely to produce artificially high prevalence rates